“Descending with Angels: Islamic Exorcism and Psychiatry. A Film Monograph” by Christian Suhr

"This book and film provide an account of the invisible dynamics of possession and psychosis, and of how the bodies and souls of Muslim patients are shaped by the conflicting demands of Islam and the psychiatric institutions of European nation-states. Over several years, Christian Suhr followed Muslim patients being treated in a Danish mosque and in a psychiatric hospital. His analysis reveals how both psychiatric and Islamic healing work not only to produce relief from pain, but also entail an ethical transformation of the patient and the cultivation of religious and secular values through the experience of pain. Creatively exploring the analytic possibilities provided by the use of a camera, both the book and...>>

“Civilizations of the Supernatural: Witchcraft, Ritual, and Religious Experience in Late Antique, Medieval, and Renaissance Traditions” edited by Fabrizio Conti

"Civilizations of the Supernatural: Witchcraft, Ritual, and Religious Experience in Late Antique, Medieval, and Renaissance Traditions brings together thirteen scholars of late-antique, medieval, and renaissance traditions who discuss magic, religious experience, ritual, and witch-beliefs with the aim of reflecting on the relationship between man and the supernatural. The content of the volume is intriguingly diverse and includes late antique traditions covering erotic love magic, Hellenistic-Egyptian astrology, apotropaic rituals, early Christian amulets, and astrological amulets; medieval traditions focusing on the relationships between magic and disbelief, pagan magic and Christian culture, as well as witchcraft and magic in Britain, Scandinavian sympathetic graphophagy, superstition in sermon literature; and finally Renaissance traditions revolving around Agrippan magic, witchcraft in...>>

“Neighboring Faiths: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in the Middle Ages and Today” by David Nirenberg

"Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are usually treated as autonomous religions, but in fact across the long course of their histories the three religions have developed in interaction with one another. In Neighboring Faiths, David Nirenberg examines how Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived with and thought about each other during the Middle Ages and what the medieval past can tell us about how they do so today. There have been countless scripture-based studies of the three “religions of the book,” but Nirenberg goes beyond those to pay close attention to how the three religious neighbors loved, tolerated, massacred, and expelled each other―all in the name...>>

“Greek Myths: A New Retelling” by Charlotte Higgins and Chris Ofili

🕵️🐷🕵️ zero-day🕵️🐷🕵️ "Charlotte Higgins reinterprets some of the most enduring stories of all time in this beautifully produced, spellbinding new collection, featuring original artworks by Chris Ofili. Here are myths of the creation, of Heracles and Theseus and Perseus, the Trojan war and its origins and aftermaths, tales of Thebes and Argos and Athens. There are stories of love and desire, adventure and magic, destructive gods, helpless humans, fantastical creatures, resourceful witches and the origins of birds and animals. This is a world of extremes, and one that resonates deeply with our own: mysterious diseases devastate cities; environmental disasters tear lives apart; women habitually suffer violence at the hands of men. Unlike in many previous collected myths,...>>

“Mind and the Cosmic Order: How the Mind Creates the Features & Structure of All Things, and Why this Insight Transforms Physics” by Charles Pinter

"The topic of this book is the relationship between mind and the physical world. From once being an esoteric question of philosophy, this subject has become a central topic in the foundations of quantum physics. The book traces this story back to Descartes, through Kant, to the beginnings of 20th Century physics, where it becomes clear that the mind-world relationship is not a speculative question but has a direct impact on the understanding of physical phenomena. The book’s argument begins with the British empiricists who raised our awareness of the fact that we have no direct contact with physical reality, but it is the mind that constructs the form and features of objects. It...>>